By Dan Thompson
Much-loved Margate artist and disability activist Lizzy Rose has passed away, after a lifelong fight with Crohns Disease.
Born in 1988, Lizzy was well-known locally and was building a national reputation with her work. She trained at Central Saint Martins in London, before working with LIMBO arts in Margate from 2012-15 as Assistant Curator alongside artists Matthew de Pulford and Paul Hazelton.
In 2016, she became part of the programming team at CRATE, and she was an Associate at Open School East in 2018. Lizzy showed work as part of Art In Romney Marsh, Whitstable Satellite, and Margate Now. She currently has a print in The Open at Turner Contemporary, selected by the Turner Contemporary Access Group.
Nationally, Lizzy was known for her work as a disabled artist and her campaigning for fairer working conditions for disabled artists will form a lasting legacy.
Lizzy lived with the immune condition Crohns disease, a type of inflammatory bowel disease, and intestinal failure.
In 2014, Lizzy challenged Thanet Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) in the High Court. She made a case against a decision to refuse NHS funding to freeze her eggs, when an imminent bone marrow transplant and chemotherapy treatment would leave her infertile. Although she lost the case, the judge ruled that the CCG “failed properly to address” recommendations made by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) on when funding should be offered.
In 2019, Lizzy spent the majority of the year in hospital but continued working from her hospital bed, and in 2020 she followed government advice to shield during the pandemic. She documented her wait for an experimental Small Bowel Transplant which had been delayed due to the pandemic, and her life shielding, on Instagram.
In January this year, her beloved stepfather Billy died. Lizzy said at the time, “He taught me maths and let me use his video cameras when I was little to put on plays with my friends and film them. He was always up for learning something new and most importantly helping you follow your passions without judgement. I was lucky to have him as a step parent.”
Lizzy is survived by her mother Christine and her dog Margot, who had brought her huge joy during lockdown.
That’s really sad. Lizzy was a lovely person. I worked with her for a short while on some films connected with one her exhibitions. She was hugely talented, intelligent and never complained publicly about her problems. Many of us followed her life through facebook and admired her courage in facing a terrible disease and increasing disability. Maybe the Turner could put on a tribute to a wonderful local artist. Very sad loss xxx
Lovely article about a lovely person. She will be missed x
I was sorry to read about the death of Lizzie Rose. I met her when she was a volunteer at the Margate Museum. Her stepfather and mother were also volunteers. Lizzie Rose took part in the planning and mounting of the Museum’s 50th anniversary exhibition of the mods and rockers ‘riots’ in 2014. On behalf of the volunteers our condolences to the family.
Lizzy was a lovely young lady I had the pleasure to meet went she was in hospital on the ward I work on she will be sadly miss thinking if you all at this sad time
It’s absolutely heartbreaking reading this, I am one of the diet chefs at QEQM who made sure she had what she wanted for dinner, we used to always have a little giggle with lizzy, such a kind, caring, strong minded, easy going young lady, she will be dearly missed, thoughts and prayers to her mum and everyone else that had the pleasure to have known her xx